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Originally Posted by spence
Contrary to detbuch's point made above (didn't have time to respond) firearm deaths now exceed car fatalities.
Latest figures I could find comparing the two show that car fatalities still outnumber gun fatalities but the gap is closing and it is predicted that gun caused deaths would become larger this year. Maybe they have. In any case the numbers are close. But the raw numbers are misleading depending on your views on suicide and accidents.
The number of suicides using guns accounts for over 60% of gun related deaths. I don't know if there is even a recorded statistic on suicide by cars. I suspect it would account for a miniscule percent of auto deaths. Since most Americans now favor the right to die by assisted suicide, why would we be horrified if the doctor used a gun rather than chemicals? And why should we interfere with those adults who choose to use a gun to kill themselves? The greatest number of suicide with gun is by white males over the age of fifty something (54?). If we removed just those from the equation, death by car would be much higher than by gun. Excluding minors, do you believe that government should be able to outlaw or regulate suicide? Do you think the Federal Government, specifically, should even have a say in suicide? And, hey, if guns were not available for suicide, I imagine that suicide by car rates would go up.
Accidental death by car is obviously vastly higher than by gun. The same is true of non-lethal injuries which occur in far greater numbers by car than by gun. I assume that gun manufacturers and auto makers try to make their products safe. But the government seems to be suing various auto companies and forcing recalls for faulty or unsafe parts of cars. Not to mention automotive exhaust pollution causing various types of death or disease not added to death and injury statistics. So far, there doesn't seem to have been a significant amount of damage to the environment caused by the use of firearms. Cars are far more prone to be used in accidents than guns are.
Using an automobile to defend yourself relies on your ability to get to and start your car fast enough to evade an attacker. Guns may be more reliable as a method of self defense than cars. The number of cases of guns used for defense varies according to different studies. Here is an entry from Wikipedia:
Estimates over the number of defensive gun uses vary, depending on the study's population, criteria, time-period studied, and other factors. Higher end estimates by Kleck and Gertz show between 1 to 2.5 million DGUs in the United States each year.[1]:64–65[2][3] Low end estimates cited by Hemenway show approximately 55,000-80,000 such uses each year.[4][5] Middle estimates have estimated approximately 1 million DGU incidents in the United States.[1]:65[6] The basis for the studies, the National Self-Defense Survey and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), vary in their methods, time-frames covered, and questions asked.[7] DGU questions were asked of all the NSDS sample.[3] Due to screening questions in the NCVS survey, only a minority of the NCVS sample were asked a DGU question.[8] Besides the NSDS and NCVS surveys, ten national and three state surveys summarized by Kleck and Gertz gave 764 thousand to 3.6 million DGU per year.[3] Hemenway contends the Kleck and Gertz study is unreliable and no conclusions can be drawn from it.[4] He argues that there are too many "false positives" in the surveys, and finds the NCVS figures more reliable, yielding estimates of around 100,000 defensive gun uses per year. Applying different adjustments, other social scientists suggest that between 250,000 and 370,000 incidences per year
The Government studies automotive fatalities because it's considered a significant public health issue. Why shouldn't guns be treated the same?
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Wouldn't automobiles create a public safety issue rather than a public health issue. Placing guns under the rubric of public health is, to me, one of those stretches the Federal Government uses to involve itself in as many aspects of our lives that it can. Just about anything can effect health if the meaning of that word is expanded far enough. It is hard for me to get my brain around death, itself, being a health issue. If you're dead, you are not sick or unhealthy. You just aren't. Cancer, heart disease, illness of all sorts will impact your health. And cancer can kill you, but it is not used by humans to kill you. Guns and autos are not pathogens or malfunctions of the body. But they can be used by humans to kill or maim you. Diseases are, to me, a health issue. Guns and automobiles are involved in safety or crime issues.
In either case, public health or public safety, those should, constitutionally be State and local concerns.
I can see a path for the Federal Government to regulate automobiles since they cross state lines every day. That doesn't mean that the Federal Government should necessarily overburden itself by taking all the paths open to it. Even if the central government can squeeze itself into various regulations of the people, it would be best for it to leave most up to the federated states. But the Federal Government, on the other hand, is constitutionally restricted in its regulation of guns. And if the Second Amendment is to be protected. The government's encroachment upon it must be restricted.
I understand that the Constitution is an ancient piece of crap in the progressive perspective. But for others, it is not. I understand that from the progressive point of view the Federal Government should be the authority in all things. That the States, at best, are localized tools for the administration of Federal fiat. That, left to the States, nothing, including public health or public safety, would be looked after in a beneficial way for the people. That only the Federal government should have the final, if not the sole, responsibility and say in all matters of governance.
But for others, that is not so.
And that is the real political battle that is occurring in our time. It is not about public health or public safety. But who is in charge of those various issues.